


I'm Not in Your Dreams

by ununquadius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bad Dreams, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Soulmate AU, mute draco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25990843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ununquadius/pseuds/ununquadius
Summary: Draco has dreamt with Harry's voice since he was fourteen, so there's no doubt for him about who his soulmate is. Now, in their Eighth Year, Harry has finally dreamt with his soulmate's voice too. The problem is that Draco was born mute.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 48
Kudos: 660
Collections: H/D Hurt!Fest 2020





	I'm Not in Your Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by prompt 142 by acupforslytherin (the summary is close enough to the prompt). It was amazing and I wanted to read it or write it badly, so I claimed it! I hope my fic is as good as the prompt suggests!
> 
> Thanks so much mods for this amazing fest and for all your work with it! I'm very excited to participate and read all the amazing works!
> 
> And last but not least, a big thank you to my dear beta E. You're an amazing beta and a wonderful person! And you have the best ideas! Thanks so so much!!
> 
> Hope you like it!

Draco had pressed himself to the wall so Harry, Weasley, and Granger couldn’t see him while he listened to their conversation. When he couldn’t handle it anymore, he ran to the Eighth years common room, where he found Pansy and dragged her to his bedroom. Luckily, none of his roommates were there. 

“What happened?” Pansy asked, as she took a seat on Draco’s bed. 

“I heard him” he signed with quick movements. Pansy, and his parents were the only ones that knew enough BSL to follow Draco’s natural signing speed. For anyone else, he had to slow down. “Harry.”

“In your dreams again? What did he say this time?” Pansy asked with interest. 

“No. I heard him talking to his friends about dreaming with his soulmate’s voice. His soulmate was singing, and has a beautiful voice, apparently.” He had been standing in front of Pansy, but when he finished, he dropped down beside her. 

It had been a shock when Draco first dreamed with his soulmate’s voice, and he discovered it was Harry Potter. He was fourteen then, and had patiently awaited for the moment that Harry dreamt with him too. Although as Draco was born mute, he wondered what Harry would hear. Nothing probably. Maybe he didn’t know he had a soulmate. 

As the years went on and all their classmates started to have dreams with their soulmates, but Harry, Draco assumed that Harry had dreamt with him, only he hadn’t realised, as he wouldn’t have heard anything. However, Harry had dreamed with a beautiful singing voice now. And that couldn’t be Draco. 

She gave him a one armed hug. 

“I’m sorry, Draco.”

“I thought… I thought he hadn’t realised it was me… That maybe his dreams were empty.” He pressed his forehead to Pansy’s shoulder, and she began to stroke his hair. 

“We’ll have to find the person who dreams with you, and maybe…” She stopped talking, and Draco raised his head to look at her. She was biting her lip and staring at the wall in front of them. 

He elbowed her so she looked at him, and shook his head. 

“I haven’t got a soulmate. That happens, you know it as well as I do.” He signed. “Harry’s mine, but I’m not his, and that’s fine. I’ll just…” He made a noncommittal gesture with his hand. 

“Harry could fall in love with you, you know? He likes you, you two have been friends since the end of the war. That had happened before. Or you could fall in love with the person that has you as their soulmate,” Pansy said, while she kept stroking his hair. It was their dynamic by then: whoever was feeling down got their hair stroked by the other one. 

“Yes, and that works so well, right? Look at your parents.” 

He got up, tired, and stretched. 

“I’m going to sleep.”

Pansy stood too, and hugged him. 

“We’ll find a way,” she whispered against his ear, so she didn’t see how Draco rolled his eyes at her optimism. 

She left, and Draco buried himself in his blankets. 

He had liked Harry since before he knew he was his soulmate, although he hadn’t been able to make the other boy know that, and instead began an enemies relationship that lasted until Harry found him crying in a bathroom in Sixth Year. That was when he had told Harry what happened, what the Dark Lord had wanted of him, and Harry had helped him as best as he could, even when Draco refused to talk to Dumbledore about it. 

Draco had thought then that Harry knew he was his soulmate, at least subconsciously, because of the way he protected him, and often asked him how he was. However, it must just have been wishful thinking. 

Draco turned in bed, angry at the injustice of his life. He could fall in love with another person and so could Harry fall in love for him, but both would know that that person wasn’t the one meant for them, something will be lacking in their lives, like a soul that wouldn’t be complete. 

* * *

The next day Pansy had to beg Draco to have breakfast while the rest of their friends look in surprise, as Draco usually had a very good appetite. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Theo asked. 

“I’m fine!” Draco signed, glaring at his friend. “I’m going to class, I don’t want to be late.”

He heard them muttering behind him, but he didn’t care. If he had to spend the rest of his life pining after Harry and being miserable, this one seemed a moment as good as any to start with it. 

He sat on the cold floor outside the Potions classroom, and put out the essay he had to turn in that day about poisons. He was sure he had made a mistake somewhere and the wording seemed weird in the last paragraph, but he couldn’t focus enough to know what was wrong with it. 

“Hey! Are you trying to learn your own essay by heart or something?” Harry asked as he sat next to him on the floor. 

He was the last person Draco wanted to see in that moment. Part of him wanted to slap him for betraying him in his dreams , although he knew it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t Harry’s fault. 

Draco gave him the finger.

“Are you okay? I saw you didn’t eat at breakfast and you left the Great Hall early.”

“I’m trying to look over my essay, can you shut up for a second?” He signed a bit too fast for Harry, and he was glad to see how he furrowed his brow while he tried to decipher Draco’s signs. 

“Fine. But you can talk to me if you have any problem.” Harry got up, and joined his friends that had just appeared in the corridor with some of their classmates. 

_Sure_ , Draco thought. With a sigh, he got up and closed his eyes. Harry was the last person he could tell his problems to. The idiot would feel guilty and go out with him or something. 

During the Potions class and all the ones he shared with Harry that day, he could feel his eyes on him. Harry liked mysteries and right now, with no Dark Lords around, Draco was the biggest mystery out there. However, Draco couldn’t let him know. He couldn’t do that to Harry, as much as he wanted to put out all his rage on him. 

“Are you going to tell us what the hell is wrong with you today?” Blaise finally snapped at dinner after Draco made a very petulant remark. 

“No,” he signed and kept eating. He wasn’t hungry exactly, but he didn’t want to hear Pansy's begs and threats again. 

“Fine. So at least be kind to us. We didn’t do anything to you.” Blaise continued eating his grilled vegetables with his eyebrows furrowed, so Draco knew he would have to deal with him later. 

“Blaise is right, you know?” Pansy said with a spoonful of soup half its way to her mouth. “You’re being a dick to us. More than usual, I mean.”

Draco left his fork on the table ready to snap again, but he stopped. They were right. It wasn’t their fault he wasn’t Harry’s soulmate, and that he couldn’t be happy for the rest of his life with the person he loved. But it was difficult to be kind to people who had discovered, met, and befriended their soulmate at the age of 6, like Pansy, or to people who had the nerve of having not only one, but two soulmates that loved him back, like Blaise. He picked up his fork again, and kept eating. 

“I think we convinced him, Blaise.” Pansy said with a smirk. 

Draco ignored her. 

* * *

The next days followed the same pattern as the day after the revelation that turned Draco’s life into a miserable hell. He was alone most of the time, because when he was with people he couldn’t help but be rude to them.

It all went down on Saturday, when during the quidditch training he threw the quaffle at Dean Thomas’s head on purpose because he made a comment about him and Seamus going to Hogsmeade later to celebrate their anniversary. 

“What the fuck, Malfoy!?” Weasley, the captain of the new inter house quidditch team, screamed. 

“It was a mistake!” He signed with fast signs and with exaggeration so Weasley could see them clearly. 

“A mistake my arse!” Thomas said. He had his hand on the head, and Draco saw that he had a bit of blood on his forehead. “You did it on purpose! I don’t know what’s wrong with you lately but you’ve been an arse.”

Angrily, he flew to the floor, and left the pitch with big strides. 

“Dean’s right, you know, you’ve been playing badly all day too. I’ll look for someone who plays as chaser against Hufflepuff if you’re going to be like this,” Weasley said. Draco thought he was a bit worried for him, but he wasn’t sure. Ron hasn’t forgiven him as easily as Harry for the war. “Training’s over.”

Draco took his time to shower, and ignored Pansy when she asked him if he wanted her to wait for him. When he finally heard, Susan Bones and Daphne Greengrass had left the lockers, he went out too. 

He went to the lake, and sat in the grass. It always calmed him down, the water movements, and the occasional tentacle that reached for some distracted birds. 

“Can I sit down?” A voice asked. Harry. 

He nodded, although as soon as he saw Harry sat, he warned him:

“If you’re here to ask me what’s wrong with me or to tell me I’m a git, you can leave now.”

“I just want to talk to you. We haven’t talked in ages. I’ve missed it,” Harry said, smiling at him. 

Draco felt a bit better, he even smiled back, with a true smile, and not the grimace he had been doing lately. It was easy talking to Harry when he forgot about all the soulmate mess. 

“What do you want to talk about then?”

“I have something to tell you. I finally heard my soulmate’s voice!” Harry’s smile was bigger, and his eyes were shining in excitement. 

Draco swallowed, and forced himself to smile again. He should be happy that his soulmate had a soulmate, right? It was the kind of thing he should be happy about, although it wasn’t him. Was he getting too depressing, thinking always about the same thing?

“How does it sound like? Anyone you know?” he signed, and for the first time it occurred to him that Harry might know who the beautiful voice he had been hearing in his dreams belonged to. Suddenly his stomach felt very heavy and empty at the same time.

“It’s the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard! It was singing a song, you know? It was so soft, and sweet! Like a lullaby, only… sexier too.” Harry’s cheeks had gone red in his excitement, something that Draco couldn't help but found adorable.

“A sexy lullaby?” he signed, with his eyebrow raised. “Who the hell is your soulmate, and what the fuck is that kink of yours, Potter?”

“Do soulmates dreams show you your kinks?” Harry’s voice was suddenly very high pitched, and he looked nervous. 

Draco burst out laughing. 

“Idiot!” Harry punched him playfully on the shoulder. “It’s a joke, isn’t it? Git.”

“Maybe it is,” Draco signed with a blissful smile. They looked at the lake for a few moments, until he gathered all the courage he could muster to ask what he had been dying to know. “You haven’t answered me, who is it?”

“I have no idea, Draco.” Harry’s expression was sadder now, and Draco felt the urge to hug him, so he would be happy and excited again. However, he refrained. “I wish it— I supposed I’ll find out someday, right? We all can’t find ours here at Hogwarts. You haven’t told me who’s yours either.”

“Mine?” he asked, panic rising from his belly, and making its place somewhere in his throat. He tried to swallow it, but it stayed there. “It’s… a boy.”

“You’ve told me you’re gay, so I guessed it was a boy. Do I know him? Is it Blaise?” Harry asked, with too much interest in Draco’s opinion. 

“No. Can we talk about something else?” he signed quickly. 

“Of course. But… Draco, is there any problem with your soulmate? Is that why you’ve been so sad these days?” Harry asked, concern in his voice. 

Draco’s heart beat wildly, and he cursed the universe for his rotten luck. Everybody else, even his best friends had called him rude, a prick, and worse things in the last days, but only Harry had realised that what was wrong with him was that he was sad. 

He made up his mind. Who could he trust more than his soulmate? He needed someone who listened to him, who calmed him down a little, someone that just held him, and not started plotting something to fix his life. He needed a soulmate, even if it just worked as a friend, and nothing else. 

He tried to swallow the lump on his throat again, but he couldn’t. He nodded. 

Harry took his hand, and tightened a bit in a comforting gesture. Draco disentangled their hands so he could sign his answer. 

“I’m not his soulmate. He dreamt with someone else’s voice.”

“How do you know? That it wasn’t your voice, I mean,” Harry asked, taking his hand again, tightening it, and then letting it go to allow Draco to answer. 

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Potter, but I’m mute,” Draco signed, smirking at Harry and raising his eyebrows. Harry rolled his eyes. 

“I know that, you idiot! I meant that… well… Are you sure your soulmate wouldn't dream with anything? Maybe he’ll just dream with an unknown voice.”

“Like your sexy lullaby singer?”

“Exactly.”

“That’s idiotic.”

He looked at the lake again. It would be great if Harry was right, if the voice he heard was Draco’s or, well, some magical voice supposed to be Draco’s. They were friends, they had an amazing relationship, and they knew each other better than anyone; they were perfect for each other already. Draco thought that maybe that’s everything he was getting out of this. Maybe he didn’t need a soulmate to marry or to have a romantic relationship with. Maybe he was only getting friendship. But what would happen when Harry finally met his soulmate, the lullaby singer? Would he forget about Draco? Would their friendship change?

* * *

“NEWTS!” Blaise complained during the evening of the next Monday. 

The five Slytherins that had returned to Hogwarts for their Eighth Year were sharing a table in the common room, and doing their homework, books and parchment were scattered all over the place. On the purple sofas near the fireplace, the Gryffindors were playing chess, and talking quietly. Draco looked at them from time to time and wondered if Harry had dreamt again with the beautiful voice. 

“You’re only taking five NEWTS so stop whining,” Draco signed with lazy fingers. He was so tired. He stretched, and let out a huge yawn.

“It’s not my fault you’re a greedy git that took like all the subjects,” Blaise said, scratching something on his parchment with anger. 

“Blaaaaiiise! Draco had been nice these past days, don’t anger him now. I can’t stand another week like the last one!” Pansy said. She looked tired too, and Draco noticed that she had given up on her Charms essay and had drawn some flowers in the margin. 

Draco showed them his middle finger. 

“Is that a new sign they forgot to teach us in the BSL class in first year?” Blaise asked in a mocking tone. 

“Then see if they taught you this,” he signed and cast a stinging hex Blaise’s way, who dodged it by a few centimetres. 

“Ugh! You are the worst! I’m going to sleep!” Daphne said, as she put all her things in her bag and stomped to the girls’s bedrooms. 

“I’m going to sleep too. I’m too tired to write this,” Draco signed. He didn’t bother to put his things away, knowing that none of his classmates would dare to touch them. Well, maybe his friends would, but he didn’t mind that.

He put on his pajamas and laid in his bed with the curtains closed. He yawned. The teachers were losing their minds because of the NEWTS, making them work harder and harder with every day that passed, even when the exams were still weeks away. He was sure he’d pass them, although the practical exams scared him a little. He always had more problems than his classmates learning the spells, and hexes. Apparently, it was easier to cast them verbally, but that had never been an option for him. He was sure there had to be an option for people like him, so mute or deaf first year students could be as good as their classmates, but Hogwarts hadn’t discovered it yet. 

He closed his eyes, and soon enough his mind filled with the bright and confusing images of a dream. He was flying, and Weasley kept signing at him that he was a Hufflepuff, but Draco flew faster and faster, until he left the other boy behind. He was standing in the Astronomy Tower with Harry. Draco smiled and approached him, but Harry jumped off the tower while screaming that they couldn’t be together because he was in love with a veela. 

Draco woke up with a start. It was the first time Harry said something like that in his dreams. In all the other ones he’d had, he made it clear that they belonged together. Was this some twist in the soulmate dreams, or was it just a normal dream fed with Draco’s fears?

He knew he couldn’t sleep after the dream, so he dressed, and left the room quietly. He planned to go to the library for a few hours before the first class to look for more information about his dream, but Pansy was in the common room, and dragged him to the Great Hall to have breakfast. 

“Are you alright?” she asked, serving them big portions of scrambled eggs. 

“I dreamt with Harry again, but it was different,” he signed slowly. “He said we couldn’t be together and jumped off the Astronomy Tower. What do you think it means?” His fingers trembled a little, and he stumbled over the signs. 

“I think you should relax, and start thinking about other things.” He furrowed his brow in indignation, and was ready to start ranting at Pansy, but then she interrupted him. “I mean! I know it’s awful, Draco, I know it is, but you can’t be thinking about it all the time! You’re driving me crazy, and you too! Maybe it was just a normal dream.”

“Maybe,” he signed just to appease her. He had missed their conversations the past week, when he had been too preoccupied with Harry’s revelation to pay any positive attention to his friends. He took a sip of tea, and thought that he wouldn’t bother Pansy again with his soulmate problems. “Did you finish the DADA homework last night?”

“I still have to write a few inches about the defensive curses, that’s why I woke up so early. Do you want to go to the library now with me?” Pansy asked, as she cleaned her lips with a napkin. 

He nodded, and got up. He had to finish his homework too, but that wasn't his priority. If Pansy asked, he would say he needed to find some information for some subject that she didn’t take, like Ancient Runes.

* * *

In the following weeks, Draco tried to be his old self. He ignored all the dreams he was having in which Harry whispered different versions of what he had said that first night in the Astronomy Tower. However, Draco kept going to the library to look for something that explained them, but he hadn’t found anything yet. Meanwhile, Harry hadn’t mentioned to him anything else about the beautiful voice that visited him in dreams, but Draco had overheard him talking to Weasley and Granger about it. 

The last Saturday of April, they had their quidditch match against Hufflepuff. Thankfully, Ron didn’t have to look for another chaser as Draco hadn’t thrown any other quaffles into his teammates' heads. They won for just ten points when Harry caught the snitch under the Hufflepuff seeker's nose. The eighth years threw a party to celebrate their victory.

Draco was sitting with Pansy and Blaise on the sofa near the fireplace, watching how some couples danced and laughed in the middle of the common room. In one corner, Susan Bones was snogging Daphne Greengrass, and Dean Thomas looked with envy at how Seamus and Lavender whispered and laughed together.

“Are we going to stay here all night or are we going to have fun?” Blaise said, putting away his empty butterbeer bottle and getting up.

“Let’s dance!” Pansy exclaimed, getting up too, and taking Blaise’s hand. She looked at Draco with a smile and her eyebrows raised, but he shook his head. He didn’t want to dance.

He took a sip of his butterbeer, and spluttered when Harry bumped into his arm when dropped next to him. Draco glared at him, while he coughed. Harry patted his back.

“Sorry!” Harry said. “Didn’t see you were drinking!”

Draco coughed a bit more, and left his bottle carefully on the table before them. 

“Well, what do you want? Apart from murder me with butterbear, that is,” he signed.

“Why are you always in such a bad mood?” Harry asked.

“I’m in a bad mood because an idiot almost made me choke,” Draco signed, glaring at Harry in what he hoped was a playful way.

“I said sorry!” Harry exclaimed, making puppy eyes that Draco knew he couldn’t resist. “Do you want to dance?”

Draco’s heart skipped a bit, not sure if he had heard correctly. 

“I didn’t know you knew how to dance. I was there during the Yule Ball, you know?” he signed, smirking. 

“Idiot. Well, it’s my way of apologizing. I can sing to you too, if you prefer.”

Draco laughed. Everyone in their common room had heard Harry sang while he was in the shower and he thought nobody heard him. He was a terrible singer.

“I think I’ll accept the dance invitation,” he signed, as he got up. Then he grabbed Harry’s hand and dragged him to the middle of the common room.

Later that night, Draco went to sleep with a big smile, and for once his dreams were about a certain green eyed boy not telling him how a horrible soulmate he’d be, but about sweet things whispered in loving ways. 

* * *

“In the NEWTs exam you’ll have to demonstrate you know how to cast a patronus,” said professor Arias the next Tuesday during their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. “They’ll ask for it just in the written part, but it’s better if you already know how casting one feels. I know that many of you have already learned how to cast it, and have even used it in trying circumstances. So… Miss Abbott, how do we cast a patronus charm?”

“We have to think about something that makes us happy, and focus really hard on it. Then we cast the charm,” Hannah said with her fingers playing with one of her thick plaits. 

“Excellent! Ten points to Hufflepuff.” Professor Arias said. “Now, you know what I’m going to ask of you! Get up in a line and think of your happiest memory. Then say the words _expecto patronum_ to cast it!”

The students got up all at once making a lot of noise, and then, little by little, the excited voices quiet down as they began to think. Draco knew that many of his classmates had learned with Harry to cast the patronus charm years ago, and he also knew that he’d be rubbish at it. It was the kind of magic that worked better when you screamed it. He had seen that lot of times before. So it was the kind of magic that he had troubles casting. With a sigh and a sympathetic glance from Pansy, he tried to think of his happiest memory. 

He closed his eyes, and let his mind travel to the last weekend, where the happiness of winning the match had grown with the moments he had shared with Harry. When he felt ready, he opened his eyes and thought of the words as with any nonverbal spell, but nothing happened.

He looked around and saw that most of his classmates had done it. Harry was petting a big stag with a proud smile, and a bit to his left Granger and Weasley were looking happily at theirs. Blaise was looking in astonishment at the big leopard that had appeared next to him. 

He noticed Draco looking and smiled shyly . Draco smiled back, and making sure the professor couldn’t see him, he signed a quick lucky bastard. Blaise’s smile grew bigger. 

“I don’t know how he did it, that idiot,” Pansy muttered next to him with her eyebrows knitted. She, like Draco, hadn’t been able to cast anything, not even the mist Daphne and Theo had done. 

“Let’s try again,” Draco signed.

Draco tried with a different memory, but again nothing happened. At the end of the class, he was the only one that couldn’t do it. Arias had tried to comfort him telling him it was a very difficult spell that not many were able to cast, but that didn’t make him feel better. 

That afternoon he ignored his friend's plans of doing the homework outside as it was a really nice spring day, and locked himself in a dusty classroom. He was determined to do it.

He closed his eyes, and thought of when he was little, maybe six or seven years old, and his father bought him his first broom. He smiled. He opened his eyes, with the wand ready, and then dropped it when the door opened and a smiling Harry entered. 

“What are you doing here? Can’t I have a moment of peace?” he signed quickly. He was a bit annoyed because he was sure that this time it would have worked.

“Sorry, I saw you were here alone and came to see what you were doing. I can leave,” Harry said, biting his lip at the end of the sentence. 

Draco shook his head. All his classmates had learned with Harry, so maybe he could learn from him too.

“I was trying to do the patronus charm, but…” His fingers wavered, but he saw that Harry understood. 

“It’s difficult and no everybody is able to do it,” Harry said with a calm expression that only managed to infuriate Draco. 

“I know!” His signs were wide and quick, and his mouth was twisted in a grim. “I know! But everyone in our class did it, but me! I’m smart! I know I can do it!”

“Okay! Calm down! The happy memory you choose is the quid point. The first time I tried, I went for the first time I flew in a broomstick, but although it was happy, it wasn’t enough. What usually works for me is thinking about Ron, and Hermione, and…” Harry blushed and stopped talking.

Draco decided to ignore the jealousy he felt at not being one of Harry’s happiest moments, and focused on his words. 

“Got it. I just have to think about my best friends. Should I think about the dead one or about the one that is under house arrest and doesn’t talk to me because he blames me for the death of the first one?” He asked, raising his eyebrows and looking at Harry. Harry looked back confused and hurt, and Draco sighed. Harry was trying to help him, and Draco’s problems weren’t his fault. “Sorry.” He signed with lazy fingers, and dropped himself on a table.

Harry sat next to him, and threw an arm over Draco’s shoulders, squishing a bit.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realise…” Harry said in a soft voice, and tightened his one arm hug.

Draco closed his eyes for a second and let himself feel the warmth of the hug. It was nice having Harry comforting him. He missed his friends a lot, and he couldn’t help that part of him agreed with Gregory about who was to blame for Vincent’s death. He wriggled a bit so he could face Harry to talk to him, and Harry let go of the hug, although he was still very close to Draco. 

“Okay. So no Greg or Vincent. Do you think my mother would work? What about when I came out to her and she hugged me?” He asked. It was one of his happiest moments with his mother. It had happened the summer before his Fifth Year, and he was so nervous, so sure she was going to reject him… However, she had hugged him and had to promise him a hundred times that it was fine, because Draco couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“I don’t know. Try it,” Harry said with a smile.

He tried, and this time, a silver mist came from the end of his wand. He smiled excitedly and looked at Harry.

“Did you see that?” He asked with quick signs.

“Yes! I told you it’s all about the memory!” Harry exclaimed, going closer to Draco and engulfing him in a hug.

Draco laughed. Harry pulled apart, and Draco, still laughing and still feeling the warmth of Harry’s body, tried again. And this time, although the patronus wasn’t corporeal, it was close enough.

* * *

The happiness Draco felt during his private class with Harry carried him in a cloud all week. He hadn’t been able to cast the corporeal patronus although he had practiced all week, focusing on his happy memories, that now included Harry’s excited smile after the almost-patronus he had cast. He was cheerful, something his friends thanked Merlin for, and his dreams were happier too: Harry hadn’t said anything else about Draco not being worthy of being his soulmate. However, they still bothered him for another reason, so in almost all his dreams, Harry jumped off the Astronomy Tower, fell off his broomstick or plunged from cliffs. After those dreams, Draco woke up with a desperate need to save him. 

He spent the Saturday morning in the library studying, and doing his homework, and after lunch, Pansy, Daphne and him went together to the quidditch pitch for their training session. 

“Do you think Ron will give us a speech?” Daphne asked when they were near the goal posts. 

“Sure. Our last match is in just two weeks. He’ll be insufferable,” Pansy said with a dramatic pout. 

They were right. As soon as they arrived —they were the last ones— Weasley began to remind them of the importance of winning their last match, against Gryffindor, if they wanted to win the Cup. 

“And finally, remember to get out of Bakshi, their new beater. I don’t want any of us to end in the floor with their brains scattered all around us. Alright?” Weasley asked, frowning at all of them. “And most importantly, I don’t want to lose against my sister’s team!”

“Don’t worry, Weasley,” Draco signed, “We don’t want to lose against the Weaselette either.”

Weasley glared at him, but sent them to the pitch. The training went well, although Weasley kept yelling at all of them to remember the strategies he had planned, and about all the weak spots the other team had. By the end of the training, Draco wanted to strangle him, but a smirk Harry shared with him when he flipped his fingers on Weasley’s back, appeased him. 

“What a nightmare!” He signed to Harry, and Thomas that were with him in the locking rooms. He was sitting on a bench, putting on his shoes, and Harry and Thomas were getting dressed after their shower.

“He’s just stressed,” Harry laughed, as he picked up a T-shirt. Draco looked avidly at his naked torso before the shirt hid it. “Wood was worse. He followed me around to tell me his ideas.”

They laughed, and then Thomas left, saying goodbye with a hand gesture. Harry looked around, making sure they were alone, Draco guessed, and asked:

“You’ve been happier these days. Did your soulmate problem get solved then?”

Draco felt all the warmth that he had been feeling leave him. He hadn’t forgotten about his problems, and often wondered about who the sexy lullaby singer could be. He thought it could be Ginny Weasley, and that was one of the reasons why he wanted to defeat Gryffindor so badly in the upcoming match. However, the little moments he had spent with Harry lately had almost made him feel like they were soulmates. 

“No,” he signed. “I've just stopped thinking about it all the time. It’s not like he’d love me back, is it? Have you learned anything new about your singer?”

“No. And I wanted to ask you something about it…” Harry bit his lip, and glanced at him. Draco guessed he felt guilty for asking him something about soulmates. He would feel worse if he knew who Draco’s soulmate was, he thought. “Is it normal to always dream about the same thing? I know Ron and Hermione dream about each other saying different things each time; sometimes it's a joke or something silly, and sometimes it’s something deeper. But for me, since the first time, it has been that song. Hermione promised to do some research, but she hasn’t found anything yet.”

“I don’t know,” he signed slowly. “It’s always different for me, but…” His fingers stumbled over the signs a bit. He wasn’t sure how much to tell Harry. 

“But?” he prompted, and Draco knew he couldn’t resist those bright, curious eyes. 

“But lately I’ve always dreamt the same. The words change, but he… he’s always doing the same thing. I wanted to research too. I don’t know if that’s a normal dream or something else.” 

They fell silent after that, and Draco thought that there was something strange there: in the fact that he and his soulmate had recurrent dreams. Was their soulmate magic trying to tell them both something? His heart jumped in distress. Was Harry in danger? Was that why his dreams show him falling or was it because of something else? Maybe it was a way of telling him that once Harry met his soulmate, he’d drop off of Draco’s life. That thought alone was close to bring him to tears, but he refrained. He couldn’t cry in front of Harry. 

“It’s very weird,” Harry finally said. 

Draco nodded. Suddenly, he wanted to be very far from Harry.

“I’m going to the castle,” he signed, and left the lockers before Harry could say anything else. 

* * *

“Flitwick said ten inches,” Theo hissed in a voice loud enough for Pansy, Draco, and Blaise to hear, although it looked like Madam Pince heard him too because she glared at him. 

The last sun rays entered the library bathing everything in a beautiful red and orange light. However, their group and their classmates didn't have time to enjoy it. The NEWTs were coming closer and closer, and the amount of work the teachers expected of them grew every day. 

“I don’t have ten inches of information about protective charms!” Pansy hissed back. “He’ll have to be happy with this. Unless…!” She looked brightly at Draco and Blaise that were working on the other side of the table. 

“In your dreams,” Blaise said, and continued writing his longer than ten inches essay. 

“Draco?” She smiled, and looked at him with puppy eyes. 

Draco looked at her with his eyebrows raised, and shook his head. 

“Fuckers,” Pansy said a bit too loudly, which earned her another glare and a throat clearing from Pince. 

“I’m going to look for another book,” Draco signed, and then looked sternly at Pansy and Theo, “Don’t look at my essay. Blaise, don't let them copy.”

Pansy and Theo looked offended at him, and Blaise muttered something like “whatever”. He left, knowing that his friends would copy everything they could before he returned. He wandered the library until he found the Charms section. He wanted to add a bit about protective spells against dark magic, as it had been a handy knowledge to have during the war. He was about to pick _Dark Curses and How to Deal with Them_ , when he heard them. He was sure they couldn’t see him, so he approached a bit more to the end of the corridor and listened. 

“...but that was all it said. I’m sorry, Harry,” Hermione Granger was saying. 

“I don’t understand why it doesn’t change for me. It’s always that song. Every night. I’m going mental!” Harry whispered, and Draco imagined that he was furrowing his brow in that adorable way he always did when he was frustrated with something. 

“Maybe it helped, if you’d remember what the song is about,” Weasley piped up. 

“Yes,” Harry said. They were silent for a few seconds, and he added in a quieter voice. “It’d be better if I knew who they are, you know? Or, well, I…” He stopped, and Draco went a bit closer, not wanting to miss anything. “I wish it’s someone I know. I wish… I wish it was Draco. Do you think that’s possible? He did say he was having weird dreams too.”

Draco’s heart was beating so fast and loudly he thought it was a miracle that Harry and his friends didn’t hear it. Harry wished he was his soulmate? He breathed deeply a few times trying to calm himself, and then kept listening. A few minutes later he returned to his table. 

“Haven’t you gone to look for some book?” Blaise asked as soon as Draco sat in front of him. 

“Yes, but, listen, this is more important!” He waved a hand near Theo and Pansy so they looked at him too, and began to tell them what he had heard. “He wants me to be his soulmate!” He signed excitedly once he finished. 

“That’s amazing, Draco!” Pansy exclaimed, and hugged him. 

“We’re in a library!” Madam Pince hissed near them. They haven’t seen her leave her desk. “Out if you don’t know how to behave!”

“I’m sorry!” Pansy said with her best contrite face, and in an exaggerated low voice. Madam Pince seemed happy enough with it, but she kept looking at them like a vulture would look at its prey. 

“Wait, but you aren’t his soulmate,” Theo said, then looked at Pince, and decided to sign instead of talking. “Him wanting you to be doesn’t fix anything, right?”

“I haven’t told you everything yet,” Draco signed. “I’m having strange dreams. They’re always about the same thing, over and over, and he’s having them too. According to Granger, that means that we’re connected in some way.”

“And are we listening to Granger now?” Blaise signed with clumsy fingers. “She doesn’t know anything about it.”

“So what do you say?” Draco signed, a bit angry that his friend was so reluctant to believe what seemed like something evident to Draco. 

“I say that you’re an idiot for believing her,” Blaise signed and crossed his arms over his chest. 

“I’m sorry, Draco,” Theo signed, “but I agree with Blaise. It’s great that Potter likes you that much, but, as you just told us, he’s dreaming with someone else’s voice. It isn’t possible it’s you.”

“Pansy?” He turned to the only ally he had left. 

“It’s interesting that both of you are having the same dream every night,” Pansy signed carefully, as if she was scared of saying the wrong thing and hurt Draco, “but it’s not like both of you are dreaming about the same thing. And there’s the problem of the voice, Draco. I think Granger is wrong, and you shouldn’t get your hopes up about this. If I were you, I’ll try to find the person that has you as their soulmate and forget about Potter.”

Draco looked at his friends in anger. He had come here to tell them the good news he had heard, and they had destroyed his hopes with just a few words. Pansy had the decency of looking sorry about it at least. He picked up his homework, ink, and quill without looking at any of them, and left the library. He needed to be alone. 

He was sure that the connection Granger had found wasn’t a coincidence, but maybe those hopes were fed by the words Harry had said. _I wish it’s Draco_. Couldn’t that be enough? Couldn’t Harry’s wish fulfil the soulmate gap? They liked each other, and they wished to be together. It had to count. 

On the other hand —and now that his friends had pointed out all the failures his dreams had he allowed himself to think about it for the first time since the thought crossed his mind weeks ago—, it was Harry Potter. It had been very arrogant of him to think that he of all people would get a happy ending with his soulmate. Harry deserved someone better, someone that wasn’t a Death Eater, someone that hadn’t torture innocents, someone that hadn’t been very close to become a murderer. It was fair, he thought, that he got Harry as his soulmate, but Harry got someone else, probably someone wonderful, brave, and kind. It was poetic justice. 

That night, his dreams were riddled with the screams of Harry when he fell to the abyss while Draco tried to cast a spell that saved him and failed. 

* * *

The next morning, Draco felt like he did the day after he overheard Harry saying he had dreamt with his soulmate’s voice for the first time. The hopes and happiness that had calmed his troubled mind in some moments had been wiped by his friends’s words. They were right, and now Draco didn’t have any doubt about it. As Pansy had told him, he should forget about Harry. However, it was really difficult to forget about him. 

With a sigh, he tried to focus on the Transfiguration class. They were supposed to transform a toad into a cat, but only Granger had managed to make some hair grow. 

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Pansy said in a hushed voice. “Feles!” Her toad jumped a bit, and two whiskers appeared on its face. 

He shrugged and pointed his wand to the toad. Nothing happened. 

“Look, Draco, I know it sucks, but you can’t go back to this grumpy state, okay? Please?” She kept talking to him during all the classes they shared that day, and he kept ignoring her. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, didn’t want to do anything. Apathy had wrapped its tentacles around his mind and didn’t let him think of anything else. 

Theo and Blaise tried to talk to him too —he guessed they felt guilty for ruining his good mood and hopes— but as he did with anyone else, he ignored them. Ignoring Harry proved to be a little harder, but all he had to do was think about how undeserving of Harry’s love and affection he was so it was easy to push him away. He even stopped going to the quidditch trainings, which earned him a long telling-off with Weasley that forced him to return if only to not hear Weasley’s scolding again. 

After a week of his melancholic state, his friends stopped trying to cheer him up, although he could feel Harry’s worried eyes on him at all times. 

The day of the final match, the Inter-house team was gathered in the locker room listening to Weasley’s speech. 

“The Gryffindors have a good team, no doubts there, but our team as a whole is way better. They had really good Chasers, but that’s nothing compared to you three,” he said, looking at Daphne, Dean, and Draco. Inwardly, Draco thanked him for including him in spite of how badly he had been playing lately. “Our Seeker is the best one in centuries, and our Beaters are as fierce as mountain trolls!” Draco didn’t think that comparing Pansy to a mountain troll was going to leave Weasley without consequences, but apparently the nerves for the match made Pansy forgive him. “We only has to be careful with—”

“If you mention Bakshi again, I’ll hit you with my bat” Pansy said. 

“I was just going to say that we have to be careful to catch the snitch once we’re winning by twenty points!” Weasley said. 

“It’ll be fine, Ron! Stop worrying!” Harry said with a smile. 

“We have to beat, Ginny, okay?” 

The team reassured him, and left to the pitch. The roars of the hundreds of students watching the match welcomed them. Draco didn’t feel as excited as other times, but the familiar space and knowing that soon enough he will be flying cheered him up a little. Madam Hooch made the Weasleys shake hands as the two captains, and then they were in the air. 

Daphne catched the quaffle, and flew to the Gryffindor posts with Draco and Dean close behind. 

“Greengrass with the quaffle.” The commentator’s voice reached Draco’s ears. He looked at the terraces and saw a girl he didn’t know sitting next to McGonagall. “She passes it to Malfoy, who passed it to Thomas, who passes it— Ouch! That must have hurt! A bludger thrown by Peakes hits the Eight Year student who drops the quaffle. Weasley with the quaffle.”

Ron Weasley saved the quaffle thrown by his sister, and Draco caught it again. He threw it to Daphne when he saw Robins coming for him, dodged her, and flew as fast as he could to the goal posts, where Daphne and Thomas were. 

“...Malfoy catches the quaffle, throws it and... GOAL OF THE EIGHTH YEAR TEAM!” 

The chasers hugged briefly to celebrate their goal. Over Thomas' shoulder, Draco saw Harry smiling at him. 

It was two goals later when it happened. Draco had had to slow down to dodge a bludger Peakes threw, and when he wanted to go back to the match he was behind most of the other players that were gathered around Ron’s goal. He made his broom move forwards, but a movement to his left caught his attention. He wasn’t the only player on that side of the pitch. Harry had seen the snitch and was flying quickly towards it. 

“We have never seen something like this before! The Gryffindors don’t let the Eighth Years catch the quaffle, they seem resoluted to score!” The commentator’s voice said. 

Nobody had seen Harry. He was going to catch the golden ball and win the match. Draco smiled a little, but then his mouth turned into an horrified grimace. Bakshi had seen Harry too and had hit a bludger his way. The ball hit Harry on the head, and now he was falling to the floor, unconscious. 

“NO!” Bakshi screamed, horrified, but with the mess at the other side of the pitch, nobody paid attention to him. 

Draco’s first instinct was to fly to Harry and tried to save him, but he knew he couldn’t make it on time. Without keeping his eyes off Harry, he picked up his wand and cast a spell to slow down his fall. But from so far, the spell didn’t work. Panicked, he tried to think of something else. There was a spell… He had only read about it, but he hoped his desperation was enough to make the spell work. He thought the words, and pointed his wand again. But again nothing happened. 

Harry’s body was closer and closer to the ground, and still, it seemed like none had noticed. He couldn’t lose him. He tried again. He closed his eyes for a second, and thought about Harry, about his smile, about how happy his presence made him, and let the memory of those happy moments overcome his scared mind. Then cast the spell. 

Golden lights flew from Draco’s wand towards Harry, wrapping him in a protective cocoon, and gliding slowly to the ground, where the lights placed Harry with care before disappearing. Draco let out a relieved breath, and realised that the noise around him had stopped. The people on the quidditch match were silently looking at him. A bit too late, Madam Hooch signaled the end of the match, and McGonagall, with the face very pale, ran towards Harry. 

* * *

The brilliant morning sun bathed the Hospital Wing making it nicer than any other time Draco had visited it. He blinked when he entered as it was sunnier than the corridor he just left, and then smiled at Harry, who was sitting in his bed with a thick bandage around his head. 

“Hey!” Harry greeted him. “My saviour!”

Draco showed him his middle finger. When he was close enough to Harry's bed, he sat on the chair next to it, and threw him the present he had brought. 

“For you, idiot,” he signed.

Harry smiled again, and opened the present with the energy of a 5 year old on Christmas Day. It was a little box of the best chocolate they sold in Honeydukes. Harry took one and offered another to Draco.

“Thanks,” Harry said once he had swallowed. “Not only for the chocolates, although they’re amazing, but for saving me.” He looked curious at Draco, and blushed. Then picked another chocolate. 

“It’s nothing,” Draco signed. He had been worried out of his mind since the match. Weasley and Granger had gone to the Hospital Wing as soon as they allowed them to visit their friend, and had returned to the common room saying that Harry was well but unconscious. That morning it had been the same, so Draco was glad to find Harry awake and without consequences for the hit on the head. “Are you alright now, then?”

“Yes. Madam Pomfrey said it was a concussion, but that I’ll be able to leave next week.” Harry looked at Draco again, and opened his mouth as if to say something else, but must have changed his mind because he closed it again. 

“Weasley is devastated we lost against Gryffindor. I think he’ll hex you once he sees you’re well,” Draco signed, smiling a little, although he was sure Harry wasn’t paying attention to him. He looked at him, but as if he hadn’t looked at Draco before, and when they locked eyes, Harry blushed and averted his gaze. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, yes. Just… Draco. Er…” Harry blushed again, and seemed unable to look at Draco. Draco just stared in confusion. Finally, Harry looked at him again. “What spell did you use to save me?”

“It’s one I found in an old Charms book,” he signed. “I haven’t tried it before, but the usual gliding spells weren’t working, and I was desperate. You were right, by the way,” he added with a smile. “Happy memories make magic work better, not only patronus.”

“Can you write the spell?” Harry asked. 

When Draco nodded, still feeling like or either Harry wasn’t as well as he wanted him to believe or either he was missing something only Harry knew, Harry tore apart the last copy of The Daily Prophet and pushed it towards him. Draco picked a quill from Harry’s bedside table and began to write the words feeling Harry’s gaze on him. 

He gave the piece of paper to Harry, and observed how Harry read the words moving the lips. Harry’s face seemed to light up with every word. 

“I knew it,” Harry whispered, with his eyes shining. “I knew it. You’re the sexy lullaby singer!”

Draco’s mouth opened in surprise, and all his body reacted in some way: his heart skipped a beat, his stomach jumped, butterflies occupied his gut, and he could feel how his cheeks blushed.

“I’m—.” His fingers didn’t respond to him. They were shaking, and it didn’t help that his brain didn’t know what to say either. “I can’t be—.”

“But you are!” Harry’s eyes still shone, and he looked at Draco as if it was the first time he saw it, like trying to learn his face by heart. “The song I’ve been hearing in my dreams is this spell! I can’t hear you, so the soulmate’s magic must have found a way around it, can’t it?”

Draco nodded. He too looked at Harry as if it was the first time. He looked at the bright, green eyes that he had always found so beautiful; at the full lips that were smiling so kindly at him; at the tanned skin with two moles near the nose… Was it that easy? All the waiting, all the crying, the shattered hopes and dreams, and they have been soulmates all along? Happy endings seemed too unreal for Draco, but it made sense. His dreams finally made sense too.

However, his silence was worrying Harry, who bit his lip, and whatever thoughts he was having cast a shadow over his expression. 

“I’m not yours, right? You’d have told me before if we….” He lowered his voice with every word until he felt silent. He turned his eyes to the chocolates box he still had on his lap. 

Draco shook his head. It was like Harry’s words had awakened him from his astonishment. He called Harry’s attention by waving a hand near him, and when he was sure he had his undivided attention, he answered. 

“It’s you, you idiot!” He felt tears in his eyes, but he didn’t bother to wipe them. “I was so worried you had another soulmate, so jealous! But it’s us! We can be together! If you want.” He finished with trembling fingers. 

“Of course I want!” Harry almost shouted. He sat on the bed facing Draco and took his hands on his. “Can I hug you, my saviour?” He asked in a hushed tone. 

Draco sat on the bed next to him because thinking about Harry getting up with the concussion he had made him anxious. Harry threw his arms around him as soon as they were close enough, and Draco did the same, relishing on the warmth of the hug and on Harry’s smell.

“Can I kiss you?” Harry’s whisper sounded in Draco’s ear, sending shivers down his spine. 

Draco didn’t answer. He pressed his lips to Harry’s and for a blissful moment stopped thinking of anything else that wasn’t this moment. After, he thought that casting a patronus wouldn’t be that difficult. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea of BSL or any sign language, so please, if there is any mistake there feel free to let me know so I can fix it!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!
> 
> \--
> 
> Remember to leave some love for the creator if you can! Come reblog this work and view others from this fest [HERE](https://hd-hurtfest.tumblr.com/) on the H/D Hurt!Fest tumblr page!


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